Was this a show that you wanted to do, or did City Stage bring you on after they’d already decided to do it?

Actually, when it was on Broadway, Tony (Rivenbark, Thalian Hall’s executive director) saw it in New York and he came down and told (City Stage artistic director) Justin (Smith) that this is something City Stage should look at. He wasn’t sure it would go anywhere, but Justin and (City Stage managing director) Chiaki (Ito) brought it in. It was around maybe about a year ago that Justin came to me and asked me if maybe I wanted to direct it. I read the play, and what really struck me about it was the historical accuracy of the piece. I mean, it’s told in a very irreverent, naughty format, but the history is right on.

Now, you’ve been doing theater since you were a kid, but this will be your directorial debut. What are some things that you’ve learned from other directors over the years?

There are some great directors out there. Doug Swink, Frank Trimble, Tony Rivenbark, Suellen Yates, Lou Criscuolo, I mean, my goodness (laughs), the talent is amazing. It’s interesting, because the thing I am seeing is the different styles from these different directors are naturally coming out. I’m seeing different techniques and tactics come out.

What was the last show you appeared in?

“The Most Happy Fella” (for Opera House).

You do about one show a year on stage.

I try to do one on stage per year, and then I try to do more (set) dressing and props in between.

The props, that’s such attention to detail, where directing seems like it’s more big-picture. Was that a tough adjustment to make?

Actually not. I treat it like I ran UNCW Presents and how I will run (the new performing arts center) at Cape Fear (Community College). I put a lot of faith in my staff, and at UNCW I put a lot of faith in my students. I give them the big picture, tell them what I’d like to see, and then let them run with it. I find good people and then I let them go. I’m not a micro-manager at all, that’s not my style. I work with people I trust, that’s important to me. And I trust my cast and I trust my crew.

Was there anything, when you were stepping into that director’s role, that made you step back and say, ‘Whoa, I wasn’t expecting this’?

I realized how critical the auditions were. I never really put that much thought into that until I was sitting there, casting, and I was like, ‘Wow, this can really make or break the show.’ It hit me that this is a one-shot thing, and if I make a bad decision I’m going to have to live with it.

I went back and listened to some of the music to ‘Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson’ for the first time since I saw it off-Broadway, and it surprised me what a straight-ahead rock show it is.

It is a rock musical. There are parts of the music where the language of the show is really interesting. In the script, in the dialogue and in the lyrics, they’ll be dropping the f-bomb and then they’ll be using actual 19th century phrases. Looking at the show from the design, from the way it’s performed, it’s a collision of then and now. You don’t know what time period you’re in. (But) it really works. You have men in frock coats with a phone on the desk, and one of them’s wearing a Blue Tooth.

That’s just how they did it off-Broadway, you’d have a guy in leather jeans but with 19th century facial hair. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll show, so you can just do whatever, right?

And these guys and gals are rock stars, but they’re not the cool rock stars. These are the nerds in the basements.

They’re emo.

I even see them as the rejects of the emos, but they end up making the uncool cool and then they take over. And then you see things crumble.

I’ve seen people say, oh, it’s a comment on the Tea Party, while others have said it’s about the rise of Obama. But it’s not really obviously one or the other.

I really see it as both. What the piece does, especially at the very end, what I hope happens with the audience is, when they’re looking at the stage at the end of the show, they see a mirror. It doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are — nothing has changed in 200 years and what are you going to do? The show really is a charge to get involved and effect change, get involved in the political process.

It is weird to see that we’re dealing with some of the same issues that Andrew Jackson was.

Same stuff. Exact same stuff. You know, we talk about how dirty elections are, they were dirtier then. I’m going through these newspapers and I found a headline: “Jackson’s mother is a whore.” That’s 1820s, headline of a paper. It’s dirty, dirty stuff. That’s the importance of having the modern and the old together. We’re not telling a historical story, even though we are telling a story that’s historically accurate. It’s a brilliant commentary on our current political state.

As far as tone, there’s lots of times the show walks a fine line between funny and offensive, or challenging, maybe. How do you walk that fine line?

The thing about the show is you have these tender, beautiful, gut-wrenching moments, and then it just shatters them with comedy. It brings it the audience to this place and then it makes them very uncomfortable very fast. There are a lot of fine lines, (including) Jackson. My goodness, I mean, he was an American Hitler, but the only way the piece works (is) for the audience to see themselves in him. They have to love him, they have to sympathize with him. He’s a jerk, you know, just a pompous alpha male who’s a complete reject and a loser. He was a man of great contradictions, (and) we all are people of contradictions whether we want to see it that way or not. That was a challenge. How do you make this guy lovable and how do you make your audience sympathize with him even though he displaced and murdered 100,000 Native Americans?

How much of the history were you aware of and how much did you have to really research?

I was pretty familiar with Jackson. He’s one of the most intriguing presidents to me. Once I read the play, I saw that the history was pretty damn accurate. Now, it’s told in a very exaggerated way, but there’s nothing exaggerated about the story. I did further research, and most of the facts, they’re right on. Like the bigamy with Rachel Jackson. She was actually the first woman in the state of Kentucky to get a divorce.

A lot of the secondary characters, like John Quincy Adams or John C. Calhoun, it’s interesting how those political character types still exist today. The scheming, the political attacks.

You got that right. We hope today, with what is perceived as transparency within our government, even though we see a lot of these deals happening in front of our faces, it’s like, still, nothing happens, which is disappointing. Again, it’s that mirror I talk about that the show kind of holds up.

Here’s how we’re going to treat it. The costumes, they all have 19th century elements. There will be frock coats, there will be cravats. But there’ll be jeans, there’ll be combat boots. Everyone’s hair will be punked out. There will be punk makeup.

So, again, you’re mirroring what the script is doing, smashing the two eras together.

And I’ve taken an homage — because it makes sense why they did it in New York and I want to carry it on here — the fourth wall is completely gone in this piece. This is the thing I’ve sort of struggled (to do) with the actors. The majority of the lines are right out to the audience. It’s that dialogue with the audience, but while they’re having a dialogue with other characters. It’s not the kind of theater you usually see. There’s no fourth wall, even in the design elements of the set. What I’ve had them do is reproduce the City Stage paneling, and the balcony continues on stage, the wood paneling continues on stage, there’s going to be chandeliers hanging on stage and in the house. Taxidermy on stage and in the house. It’s creating a single room. There’s some great architectural elements in City Stage, and so, I’m not going to cover these up, let’s work with them. Kind of doing it in reverse, let’s take the house of the theater and make it the stage.

How has it been working with Paul Teal, who’s playing Andrew Jackson?

Paul is great. Before we started rehearsal I had him come over to the house, and he was already on his second autobiography of Andrew Jackson, which I was impressed with. It struck him how much of the biographical history of what is written is represented in the script. He’s taking the character seriously. He understands the man, and he understands the contradictions of the man. It’s very easy to play this part very angry. And so, in many ways, having to dial him back at points so you can see the sadness, the the soft underbelly, because everyone has a soft underbelly. And seeing that he has a strategic mind and that he actually thought he was doing good. I don’t think he went to Washington to do anything bad. He was trying to fix something that had been ignored since the birth of this country. “I’m going to complete the job. I know that I’m not going to look good right now, I’m not going to be popular, but I need to make this decision to fix it.” In terms of the Indians, as disgusting and horrible as it is, I think he was making what he thought was a good decision. There was no ill will on his part. I think he separated himself from it personally from it. “Otherwise, everyone’s going to kill each other and there will be no further resolution.” He’s a very interesting man. He did the Trail of Tears but then he found an orphan (Indian boy) on the battlefield, a baby, and he adopted him and brought him up, Lyncoya. Made him his own son. Again, that man of contradictions.

I also love that after he’s elected, he thinks that everyone’s just going to love him forever, but it doesn’t really work out like that.

It’s a total Obama moment. “You’re just like the other presidents!” There’s the great line in one of his songs, “This nation that cannot be governed.” Again, not much has changed.

Are there one or two songs that really speak to you personally or that you feel like really sum up what this musical is about?

“Second Nature.” There are the crowd-pleaser songs, the very musical theater-type rock songs — “Populism,” “Rock Star” — those are great songs, they’re pop musical songs. I think the heart of the show is in “Second Nature.” I don’t see how there will be a dry eye in the house. Chiaki (Ito, music director) has beefed up (the orchestration). It was only supposed to be a guitar solo. She’s made it more of a serious ballad, and we’ve put in a minority female singing it instead of a white male. So it comes from a very different perspective. Making that change, it is powerful. I think it comes from a very contemporary voice. I think it works better than it was intended to.

Going back to how some of these songs walk a fine line, ‘Ten Little Indians’ starts out kind of funny but then gets very dark.

It starts out very silly and slapstick, the actors are all in a line. By the end of it, my goal is to make the audience feel guilty that they laughed. It’s a brilliantly performed song, but I don’t expect applause at the end of it. The song ends in total black with a projection of an actual Native American lynching. So it goes to a very dark place. It’s just to say, yeah, we laugh every day about these stereotypes, we don’t even think about it. It’s amazing that so much of this history, no one knows, generally. It’s not really taught in schools still. So much of it is this dark history that’s been veiled.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of crowd you guys get. It’s not a show everyone knows, even though it was on Broadway.

It’s not “Oklahoma!” It’s not “The Music Man.” But it’s a brilliant new show. It’s timely. It was a little sophisticated for Broadway. There’s a depth to this show that you don’t see on the surface. With “Populism,” there will be a projection screen with a lot of engravings of the actual historical events. I hope that will ground it in the history. It’s almost a subliminal flash of posters of various events. I’ve taken populism in a broader sense than just the populist movement or Jackson being the first populist president, using the populists to advance causes good or bad. So there are posters for World War II and the gay rights movement or the women’s movement, or fighting the Indians or capturing slaves or the founding of this country. So you have all of this imagery thrown at you. It’s the power of the populists. If you’re able to capture that, for good or bad, it can be used to advance causes.

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The WAE: Wilmington-area Arts & Entertainment is dedicated to experiencing, discussing and promoting the arts in Southeastern N.C. From theater and all manner of music to visual art, dance, festivals and more, The WAE is populated by people who are immersed in local A&E. If it’s about A&E in Southeastern N.C., then we’re all about it.